- 16:36 21 October 2008
- NewScientist.com news service
- Padma Tata, Chennai
A week ahead of the festival Diwali, which is celebrated with fireworks and lights, the Indian Space Research Organisation is planning its own rocket show.
On Wednesday, ISRO is set to launch an uncrewed spacecraft to map the Moon in more detail than ever before – a far cry from ISRO's beginnings in the 1960s, with a church in Kerala as their first office.
India's maiden Moon mission Chandrayaan may have cost less than other countries' lunar missions – $80 million as opposed to $140 million for the European Space Agency's
"For the first time, we hope to have a comprehensive mapping of the entire Moon," says ISRO scientist Parameswaran Sreekumar.
The spacecraft, designed and built in India, will carry various instruments from around the world: for example, a radar made in the US will image the permanently shadowed regions of the poles to locate ice.
And upgraded versions of two spectrometers used in SMART-I will gather clues on the origin and evolution of the lunar crust. The maps will be invaluable for the
Some Indian development policy analysts question whether the money might be better spent on tackling India's myriad social needs.
"They asked the same question when we built our first satellite, Aryabhatta, in the '70s," notes Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan project director.
"ISRO has done fairly good work in using space for societal needs. Today we have satellites for education, crop, health and communications," Annadurai says. "Chandrayaan is today's equivalent of Aryabhatta."
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